Mark Twain

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it’s what he descends to that shames the human race.

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.

Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of them.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

The key to every man is his thought. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.